Wild weather lashes coast

Damage caused by last week’s late storm was not exclusive to land, with one professional Torbay-based shark fisherman finding his boat washed ashore at Cosy Corner Beach after it snapped its mooring near Migo Island on Friday night.

Department of Transport and Department of Environment and Conservation were on standby in case any fuel spilt, as a truck and four-wheel-drives assisted by manpower strained to dislodge Phil Dyer’s boat Manikio II from the sand on Tuesday afternoon.

Its mooring line snapped while savage swells and gale-force winds rocked the south coast last Friday night into the early hours of Saturday morning.

Mr Dyer, crew members and others spent the best part of three days trying to free the 15.8m vessel, but remained unsuccessful on Wednesday morning.

“It’s a bit of a complicated situation,” he said.

“We’ve got to try and edge our way out, the biggest concern is the environmental factor because we don’t want any fuel spillage,” he said

Roughly 500 litres of fuel was unable to be pumped from the vessel’s tank.

Excavation equipment was unable access the beach, with the salvage effort turning to another boat on Wednesday morning.

Mr Dyer said there might be a hole in the boat’s hull, but they were unable to detect the extent of damage until it was freed from the beach.